When Guns Save Lives
The simple truth is that over and over and over again in our country, people use weapons, such as handguns, to save their lives, the lives of their family and the lives of their friends…sometimes even strangers. We don’t hear about these stories because most times, the weapons are never actually used, but merely brandished. This is rarely newsworthy (newsworthy = moneymaking, sadly). But recently in Boston, an off-duty security guard who was legally carrying his concealed weapon saved the life of a doctor who was being stabbed by a mentally ill patient.
Look, it would be wonderful if we lived in a world where violence was unknown and weapons were unnecessary. This is not, and never has been, the world we live in. Some people are predators. The police are not tasked with preventing crime (there’s no way they can, and there are multiple judicial rulings that state, unequivocally, that preventing crime is not the responsibility of the police) and most of them are not particularly well-trained when it comes to handling their firearms (remember: for many cops, it’s just a job and a handgun is just a tool they have to carry. They rarely use them, and the qualifying tests they take are easier to pass than getting a drivers license, in my opinion). So while we live in a world where violence will happen, I cherish my right to carry a handgun to protect myself and those I care about. I take responsibility for this right and get good, intense training. And for once we’re seeing a story where a man with a license to carry used that weapon to save the life of another from a deranged attacker (the attacker was a sick man – it’s a tragedy, but he was killing a woman with a knife). I don’t envy the security guard the trauma that he’s going to be dealing with, as well as all the legal hassles (happily the police called the shooting justified, and hopefully there won’t be a civil lawsuit), but I’m glad that we can point to this story and say without a doubt that this man saved the life of a doctor with his handgun.
